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As the 3D printed face shield frames are taking hours per unit, I've tried to design a face shield that can be produced from a variety of materials/thicknesses and on a range of tools.
Our intent is to try to manufacture these in high volume with die-cutting, but they are compact enough to be made in most laser cutters, and with vinyl cutters and drawknives in thinner materials.
Jackson Masters: Designer
Diego Solank: Design & Manufacturing Advisor
Jason Trachewsky: Shield Against the Business People
Malachy Moynihan: Design & Manufacturing Advisor
Sheung Li: Medical Standards Compliance Advisor
My stepmother is a Kaiser ICU nurse manager. She told me that the hospital staff was not only critically short of personal protective equipment but that people had started to fight over what little they had been issued.
The main diagnostic tool for Covid 19 is imaging, but the imaging staff aren't given priority access to PPE, so when the ICU staff has to wheel a suspected positive patient into the imaging suite, the imaging staff leave and attempt to walk the ICU staff through how to use the equipment over the phone. I can't walk my dad through trying to reprogram the microwave over the phone without things getting tense. This seemed intolerable.
After looking at all the attempts to make DIY PPE, I started to feel that everything I was seeing was condemned to remain in low volume production. 3D printing is very hard to scale, and two hour print times per disposable face shield takes far too long.
We already can't equip all the staff in hospitals, but it's critical that expand our scope to protect all the critical infrastructure workers who literally keep the lights on while we shelter in place.
This was designed to be a minimum viable face shield. It's strong enough to be reusable, and we are going to mold closed-cell foam pads that are IPA safe to make it sanitizable.
Our design is open source and has been published to DIY PPE repos:
https://discuss.makecovidstop.org/t/face-shield-for-high-volume-production/36/2
Assembly Video:
https://imgur.com/gallery/AOsImu0
I'd write more, but I need to start on the disposable intubation hood that's up next and I already feel silly and self-aggrandizing for taking the time to submit this.
I'd love whatever feedback you might have on how to improve the design.
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Minimum Viable Face Shield
Christian Lockenwitz - what material did you use to make that?
Hmm, I see that you said Closed Cell foam, but are you sure that is allowed? A colleague made a bunch of these and it was rejected because of the foam he used.
The foam we used was approved here in CA, but we've been trying to get some molded silicone pads made so the whole thing can be tossed into an autoclave.
EMERGENEERS:
Last week I've just participated (periferally) in a design sprint to develop a dead-simple laser-cut visor. It's up and rolling, approved by Danish intensive care doctors and completely open source, meaning that anyone can download the files and start production today.
It's now in local production here in Denmark and, I believe, in Japan...
Read more here, and spread it around!
http://www.slaatto.dk/#/emergeneers/
Hi. I am interested in trying this on a home cutter machine (Silhouette). Can anyone provide a file that is usable for that? An .ai file might work. Also, can anyone recommend what to use for the shield portion?
This is terrific. We have an area hospital that has asked for donations of these. Can you tell me what sort of ROLL MATERIAL I would buy to be able to cut this on a commercial graphics cutter (GraphTec)?. Also I have converted the DXF to an .ai file, if you would also like to put that on your files download site. Just let me know where to email. Thanks!